


On Doodled Roses and Poetry

by trademarksatanist



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Developing Relationship, Flowers, Hipster!Jehan, M/M, Poetry, Roses, great freedoms taken with everything really, great freedoms were taken with the format, idk - Freeform, most of the words in this are not mine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-30
Updated: 2013-03-30
Packaged: 2017-12-06 23:10:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/741267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trademarksatanist/pseuds/trademarksatanist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After a late night at the Musain, under Jehan's empty glass, half-crumbled and without a name, a white rose drawn at the bottom.</p><div class="center">
  <p> Don't discredit the words of a poet<br/>Listen!<br/>You don't know love.<br/>love, a divine gift, don't scoff at it,<br/>the life and soul of the world is love!<br/></p>
</div><br/>Courfeyrac thinks nothing of it, and leaves the paper where it lay.
            </blockquote>





	On Doodled Roses and Poetry

 After a late night at the Musain, under Jehan's empty glass, half-crumbled and without a name, a white rose drawn at the bottom.

 

Don't discredit the words of a poet

Listen!

You don't know love.

love, a divine gift, don't scoff at it,

the life and soul of the world is love!

 

Courfeyrac thinks nothing of it, and leaves the paper where it lay.

Three days later, highlighted in a 18th century poetry book, left open on the coffee table in the apartment they all share. Even more roses are doodled in the margins.

 

See, the mountains kiss high heaven,

And the waves clasp one another;

No sister flower could be forgiven

If it disdained its brother;

And the sunlight clasps the earth,

And the moonbeams kiss the sea;--

What are all these kissings worth,

If thou kiss not me.

 

Courfeyrac closes the book and hands it to Jehan when he next enters the room to grab a cup of tea. He asks if it is for a class, and Jehan nods absentmindedly.

The Musain, past the time at night where his mind makes sense, written on the back of a business card to a flower shop that Jehan was too polite to turn down, passed into his hand as if it were a secret by a drunken Grantaire.

 

And on that cheek, and o'er that brow,

So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,

The smiles that win, the tints that glow,

But tell of days in goodness spent,

A mind at peace with all below,

A heart whose love is innocent.

 

“You're an idiot, man,” Grantaire slurs, “To ignore love is a waste a' precious resources.”

Courfeyrac leaves him, half-asleep and fostering a murderous hangover. Grantaire will curse him for not stopping his bottle earlier, but Courfeyrac is much too preoccupied. He flags a cab and shares the fare with Enjolras and his body bag that used to be Grantaire. They go to their separate rooms, dumping Grantaire in his bed, and Courfeyrac grabs a small vase from the hallway closet. The only time they use the vase is when Jehan has one of his poetry competitions and they all pitch in to buy him flowers. Courfeyrac makes sure there is not residue or water in the vase, and drops the little card to the bottom.

He places the vase on top of the shelf next to his bed, and falls asleep soon afterward.

A week later, written carefully on a post-it, taped to the refrigerator.

 

Doubt thou the stars are fire;  
Doubt that the sun doth move;  
Doubt truth to be a liar;  
But never doubt I love.

Underneath it, Courfeyrac writes-

 

Ophelia dies and so does Hamlet.

“Words, words, mere words, no matter from the heart.”

 -Courf

Late at night, an answer-

 

Because Troilus and Cressida know a happy ending when they see one.

Speak low, if you speak love!

-Jehan ✿

 

Next to his reply, Jehan had carefully doodled roses, even tracing them carefully with red ink. Courfeyrac smiles and gently peals the post-its from their place of honor. Later that night they take their places in his growing collection.

On the side of his morning coffee that Jehan bought him at the local shop and delivered to the library mid-study session. Smuggled in underneath a pastel sweater.

 

And often in my solitude I sigh

That those I do love are not more like thee!

 

He waits until Jehan leaves, with a kiss to each cheek, and then googles it. In a text, he replies.

 

"Others will scarcely trust my candid heart;

And oft I catch them smiling as they pass,

Because they see me gazing where thou art."

-Courf

 

He leaves out the first part of the stanza- _I know I do not love thee! yet, alas!_ -it's too obvious, and they are still dancing around each other, barely touching where they should meet. Courfeyrac is scared, if he's being honest, his fingers spend more time shuddering than sliding across the letters. He's romanced people before, wooed many, fucked more, but he's never wooed Jehan. He's never even _met_ anyone like Jehan. He's more scared than he cares to admit.

But it's so hard _not_ to fall in love with him.

He wears horrendous pastel sweaters and floral print skinny jeans. He smiles at everything from the rain to the little annoying kids playing on the streets. He smells like flowers and when his hair gets too long to manage, he'll french braid it, but his hair is still so short that it'll fall out in little pieces and the tail of the braid only hits his shoulders. He doodles flowers everywhere he goes, the rose becoming his signature in place of letters. He wears the same purple scarf every time it gets under forty degrees, and he's endearingly affectionate. He positively _glows_ when he talks about something he loves, and he loves pretty much everything.

And Courfeyrac loves _him._

The next Friday, right after Courfeyrac gets back from class, in from of his bedroom door, on a sheet of loose leaf paper, illustrated with bright red flowers.

 

Had we but World enough, and Time,

This coyness Lady were no crime.

 

Picnic on Sunday at 1? I'll bake whatever you wish.

-Jehan ✿ 

Courfeyrac picks it up, and takes it into his room.

He looks at it for a long time. Thinks, in mostly expletives. He dumps the vase of poetry onto his bed and sifts through them, one by one. He does not know what to say, or how to say it, or if copying a poem off of google would even do his feelings justice. He wants to romance Jehan, he wants to sweep him off his feet and spin him around the room. He wants to kiss him long into the night and just _hold_ him. He sits in the middle of the pile, until finally he rounds all of them up again and places them gently back into their vase. He puts the most recent addition on the very top, basically sitting on the rim of the vase. Any spare breeze would be able to knock it over. He wants that note to go away, it's too fast.

He declines to reply.

 

On Sunday morning, hastily shoved under the door into Courfeyrac's room, where he has been hiding for the past two days.

 

Why do we treat the fleeting day

with so much needless fear and sorrow?

It's in its nature not to stay:

Today is always gone tomorrow.

?

✿✿✿

 

Courfeyrac still doesn't answer. Jehan does not bother him for the rest of the day.

The rest of their friends notice immediately, even Enjolras looks up from his political fervor and pulls Courfeyrac aside.

“What's the matter? You know we have the ability to win this, don't you?” He mutters, and it's still his revolutionary ideals speaking.

“Just personal stuff, Enjolras, don't worry.” Enjolras purses his lips and places a hand on his shoulder.

“I do care, Courfeyrac. Do you need time to yourself? I can cover the rest of the meeting if you'd like. Or we could go out for coffee with Marius afterward, Do you need to talk?”

Enjolras grasps at straws, but it's touching that he actually puts the effort into comforting him. Courfeyrac shakes his head, mostly to get him off his back. He loves Enjolras, he really does, but he never has been the best at emotions. Enjolras would be the first to admitt it as well. After some reasurance, he hesitantly returns to their friends at the coffee table.

Luckily Jehan had declined to join them that evening, so it was far less painful than it could have been, but Courfeyrac's thoughts were consumed by the adorable flower boy the entire night so it wasn't much difference.

 

Four days later, a facebook status with two likes and five comments which he does not read, next to a profile picture of a watercolor tattoo of a rose on Jehan's shoulder. Courfeyrac reads it from his phone during a lecture.

 

Never seek to tell thy love,

Love that never told can be;

For the gentle wind doth move

Silently, invisibly.

 

I told my love, I told my love,

I told her all my heart,

Trembling, cold, in ghastly fears.

Ah! she did depart!

 

 

Embroidered onto a small piece of off-white fabric in deep blue thread and surrounded by red and white floral decal, left in its hoop on the coffee table, found at two in the afternoon after returning from the library.

 

He would not stay for me, and who can wonder?

He would not stay for me to stand and gaze.

I shook his hand, and tore my heart in sunder,

And went with half my life about my ways.

 

Courfeyrac does not add this to his collection, instead he writes, in carefully constructed letters, permanently in pen on a post-it, placed gently on top of the embroidery.

 

"I do not write of love: I am no lover."

 

but

 

"I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where."

 

I was scared. I'm sorry.

-Courf

 

That night, past midnight, he's asleep in his bed when there is a loud knock on his door and Jehan comes rushing in. His hair is braided will a headband across his forehead and he has an absurdly floral shirt on that is illuminated by the half-open window. He grabs Courfeyrac like he is the only lifeboat in a sinking ship and drags himself onto the bed. He is not crying, but he dips his head into Courfeyrac's neck as they hold each other. Courfeyrac trails kisses against the back of his ear and rubs his back. Jehan grumbles.

“You're an asshole and I hate you.”

“That's the most romantic thing you've said to me yet. Poetic, even.”

“Thou art an asshole and the hours I spend with you fill me with an agony comparable only to burning out my own eyes with a poker.”

“That's better.”

“I love you.” Courfeyrac snorts and drags Jehan farther up onto the bed, kissing his neck and wrapping his fingers in his lovely hair.

“I love you too, so much. I'm not good at this, I’m sorry.”

“Thousands of heartbroken people, of varying genders, scattered around Paris would disagree.”

“You are different, I’ve never lo- I don't know how-”

“Stop over-thinking it, Courf, seize the day.” Jehan mutters and begins to press urgent kisses to even inch of skin he can find, shoving Courfeyrac back down on the bed and pinning him there with his hips. He snuggles close to him, practically laying on top of him, and lazily traces patterns onto his chest.

When it gets too cold, Jehan sneaks under the multipul covers and drags Courfeyrac with him, they both giggle like children.

They wake up in the late afternoon the next day, both draped over each other like they are the blankets and smiling as they wipe the sleep from their eyes. Courfeyrac gets ready for his meeting at the Musain while Jehan prepares some coffee, both of them avoiding the curious eyes of their roommates and covering the hickeys with a borrowed purple scarf that still smells like roses.

 

When he gets back from his meeting, written in cursive and bold letters, next to the vase full of poems and one single dried rose, on the shelf next to the bed where Jehan is curled up.

 

 

The red rose whispers of passion,

And the white rose breathes of love;

O, the red rose is a falcon,

And the white rose is a dove.

 

But I send you a cream-white rosebud

With a flush on its petal tips;

For the love that is purest and sweetest

Has a kiss of desire on the lips.

 

Be my boyfriend?

\- Jehan✿ 

 

Underneath it, after drawing his own rose, after some time spent looking through his heavily bookmarked poetry book.

 

 

"I crave your mouth, your voice, your hair.  
Silent and starving, I prowl through the streets.  
Bread does not nourish me, dawn disrupts me, all day  
I hunt for the liquid measure of your steps"

 

yes, if you didn't get that.

-Courf  (✿)

He joins Jehan Prouvaire on the bed, and pulls him close enough to kiss him on the forehead as he sleeps.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Poetry in order of appearance-
> 
> Andrea Chénier's Aria - Luigi Illica  
> Love's Philosophy – Percy Bysshe Shelley  
> She Walks in Beauty – Lord Byron  
> Hamlet – Shakespeare  
> Troilus and Cressida – Shakespeare  
> Much ado about Nothing – Shakespeare  
> I Do Not Love Thee - Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton  
> To His Coy Mistress – Andrew Marvell  
> Nothing Twice - Wislawa Szymborska  
> Love's Secret – William Blake  
> He would not stay for me, and who can wonder- by A. E. Housman  
> 79 - Joachim du Bellay  
> XVII (I do not love you...) - Pablo Neruda  
> The White Rose - John Boyle O'Reilly  
> I Crave Your Mouth, Your Voice, Your Hair – Pablo Neruda 
> 
>  
> 
> Please do tell me what you think! It's my first time writing something like this, So I'd greatly appreciate any feedback you have!  
> I recommend checking out some of those poems, I Do Not Love Thee is probably one of my favorite poems of all time.


End file.
